Thursday, August 25, 2005

"Too busy to comment"? OK, let's play that game, shall we?

In a stunning development in which all of the Traditional Values Coalition, Family Research Council and Christian Coalition finally shut the hell up for a change, all three of those collections of fundamentalist waterheads begged off taking a position on Pat Robertson's call for political assassination, all claiming they were "too busy."

Now, let's cut them some slack. Perhaps, just perhaps, they were poring over some high-school text books, trying to learn introductory biology or something.

Oh, geez, sometimes I really crack me up.

But, seriously, let me make a simple suggestion for the media. Starting right now, no one (and I mean no one) should publish a word of what any of these creepy, hypocritical fascists has to say. No commentary, no press releases, on any topic ... nothing, until they do comment on Robertson.

If they're too busy, well, fine. We can wait. And when they stop being so busy, there's an open question on the floor and we're not going anywhere until it's resolved.

It's aggravating that you can rarely get these folks to shut the fuck up, and now, when you actually want their opinion, they clam right up. No one should tolerate this. All of them should be effectively blacklisted from the media until they make it clear where they stand.

Reporter: "Do you have any comment on Robertson's threat's to Hugo Chavez?"

CW: "Well, you know, that's not really the topic of this interview..."

R: "But you asked for questions."

CW: "Ummmm... I just remembered an appointment I had... elsewhere. Hey! Look over there! An unwed crack addiced welfare mother anti-warblogger evilutionist!" (throws down a smoke bomb and vanishes in the confusion)

If every press conference becomes more about their dodging the Robertson question than about their actual message, that would be so damn great.

PapaCool notes that Pat Robertson has become the poster-child for "foot-in-mouth disease" with this comment - yes, this is exactly what we call terrorist when a person in another country says something similar about our leaders.

Re Matthew: Just to clear this bit up for you; not all conservatives are religious. For example, I'm a devout nonbeliever. I think religion is a total crock. I do, however, strongly support Bush, and his war, lower taxes, less government, guns, electric chairs and the whole nine yards. Also being a libertarian, I’m glad as could be to watch others pursue any religion they want. Good on them.

Another thing I am is a realist. Christians for the most part, hardly scare me. American Christians certainly don’t scare me. There was a time, way back, when Christianity WAS awful scary, but they’ve evolved beyond that.

Extremist Christians are few and far between, and for the most part, mild compared to their counter parts in Islam. The realist in me sees extremist Islam in the center of bloody wars all over the globe. Yugoslavia, Chechnya, Sudan, India, the Philippines, Timor, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Afghanistan, Iraq. The list is seemingly endless.

The realist in me sees extremist Islam as a catalyst in all of these conflicts, and a true global menace. Christianity harbors no such menace on no such scale.

Sometimes I wish you folks would worry about extreme Islam as much as you do about Christianity.

Finally, to Robertson himself. Don’t worry I won’t side step the main issue. His comments were kind of kooky. Kooky on a level similar to Michael Moore calling terrorists Iraqi “minutemen”, and stunningly similar to comments made by certain left wing commentators calling for Bush’s assassination.

In the end, like Rumsfeld said, he’s a private citizen, and free speech does exist, in the USA at least. All the power to Roberts to speak his mind, if he did not, we would never know what sort of person he is. Not being in government, his comments mean little or nothing, at least to me.

Finally, to Robertson himself. Don’t worry I won’t side step the main issue. His comments were kind of kooky. Kooky on a level similar to Michael Moore calling terrorists Iraqi “minutemen”, and stunningly similar to comments made by certain left wing commentators calling for Bush’s assassination.

You have exactly 24 hours to back up this claim with evidence, or I'll be expecting an apology and a retraction.

I do, however, strongly support Bush, and his war, lower taxes, less government, guns, electric chairs and the whole nine yards. Also being a libertarian,...

You support small goverment, but you also support foreign wars, a massive military budget and a president who is only the latest in a string of leaders to concentrate more power in his own person and his inner circle?

First of all, go and read Arthur Silber at http://coldfury.com/reason/index.php. Then you can see what a real libertarian is like. I don't share all Silber's values, but he is a hell of a lot more consistent in his defense of liberty than most of the so-called libertarians running around right now.

You're what Kevin Carson (an individualist anarchist) at http://mutualist.blogspot.com would call a "vulgar libertarian," someone who spouts a bit of libertarian rhetoric but ultimately supports the same old autocratic regime.

I was refering to, of course, that famous Guardian article, written by Charlie Brooker. The Guardian has since removed it from its archives, but the famous paragraph is still kicking around. Allow me to quote if for ya.

"On November 2, the entire civilised world will be praying, praying Bush loses. And Sod's law dictates he'll probably win, thereby disproving the existence of God once and for all. The world will endure four more years of idiocy, arrogance and unwarranted bloodshed, with no benevolent deity to watch over and save us. John Wilkes Booth, Lee Harvey Oswald, John Hinckley Jr - where are you now that we need you?"

A simple Google search will turn up loads of pages quoting this. Its certainly not the first time I've heard for a bush assasination call. There are always seem to be a sprinkling of em in the 'peace' protests, and what not.

As for Michael Moore's 'minutemen' comments, they can be found at his site here:

Yes, those brave minutemen, boldly blowing up civillians and beheading contractors for a free Iraq...and don't tell me Michael Moore ISN'T main stream democratic party, he sat in a place of honor at the convention for crying out loud, right next to Carter.

With all due respect, Junker, you are so full of shit, it's a wonder you don't spontaneously explode.

To begin with, with respect to your alleged "certain left wing commentators", note first that you used the plural, so one should expect you to be able to furnish more than one example, which you didn't.

Someone at a peace protest yelling in anger that Bush should be killed in no way meaningfully represents a "left wing commentator."

In the second place, who the fuck is Charles Brooker? I've never even heard of him. Apparently, he's a Brit who writes for the Guardian? That's your example?

Let me give you an example of a high-profile commentator calling for the assassination of the American president, like here, where Ann Coulter grapples over whether to "impeach or assassinate" Bill Clinton.

And for other high-profile right-wing commentators who advocated killing their opponents, well, check this out.

And the best you can do is some non-descript Brit whose statement isn't even on the web anymore. You really are a total wank, aren't you?

I'm not telling you what your libertarianism should "entain," I'm telling you what libertarianism actually is. It's a defined set of beliefs, and while there is always room around the edges of ideologies, you miss about half of the core tenets of libertarianism.

Your belief that you are a libertarian is about as accurate as the belief held by the assistant bank manager who wears a Che tee-shirt on weekends and thinks he's a socialist revolutionary.

Listen CC, I never brushed off the silly rhetoric coming from the right any more then that coming from the left. There are moonbats on both sides and I've little respect for diatribe of either. Michael Moores comments certainly take the cake, cheering on terrorists and murderers, but hey, you can ignore those if ya like.

RE Matthew: From the Merriam Webster Dictionary, a Libertarian is:

1. an advocate of the doctrine of free will

2. a person who upholds the principles of absolute and unrestricted liberty especially of thought and action

I think that fits my bill nicely, although I doubt there is anyone who doesn’t have SOME quip with another’s actions. But you can never fit an ideology perfectly, no one ever has.